


An Ounce of Prevention

by tryslora



Series: All Our Yesterdays [30]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Banshees, Community: fullmoon_ficlet, Danny Knows, Danny Mahealani & Lydia Martin Friendship, Danny Mahealani is Part of the Pack, Danny is Obscure, Jackson is Frustrated, M/M, Magical Danny Mahealani, Nemeton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-10 12:38:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2025387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jackson asks Danny what’s going on, and surprisingly, he actually gets an answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Ounce of Prevention

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Prompt #78 - Catastrophe at fullmoon_ficlet. And hey, the series is actually moving forward and might eventually approach some forms of resolution! We're getting there... Thanks to all of you for hanging around and continuing to read and cheerlead as each story posts. As always, I do not own the world or characters of Teen Wolf, I just like to play with them.

Danny’s always had a way of moving into places and making them his own. Jackson can’t remember a time when Danny didn’t fit in somewhere, and Jackson’s apartment is no exception. It’s been two days since Danny moved from Stiles’s house into Jackson’s apartment and it already looks like he moved in there from the start.

Except for Nikki’s room. That still looks exactly like the place Nikki made for herself, and that bothers Jackson somehow.

“So, why’re you here?” Jackson pulls up one of the chairs at the small kitchen table, stretching his legs out and crossing his arms.

Danny is hunched over his laptop, fingers flying as he works. “At the moment? Telecommuting. I have a half hour left in my work day before people will stop emailing me with crises, so I might be a bit distracted.”

“Take thirty minutes off,” Jackson suggests quietly. “Because we need to talk. It’s been a while since we’ve talked about anything important, and I’m getting the feeling you’ve been holding out on me.”

He stares at Danny, flares his eyes as soon as Danny glances up, and sees the way Danny’s eyes seem to go flat, the same way they always have. Danny slowly closes the lid of his laptop and it offers a faint _beep_ as it goes into sleep mode.

“I’m here to prevent a catastrophe,” Danny says. “But I think you already know that.”

“Stiles and I are already doing a good job of keeping the kids from sacrificing themselves to the Nemeton,” Jackson counters. “I don’t think you’re needed for that. We know Caleb is connected to it because he’s Scott and Allison’s son, and Stiles thinks Nikki is connected because of what happened when Lydia died.”

Danny shakes his head. “Close, but not quite. Nikki’s connected to the Nemeton because Lydia was connected to the Nemeton. She wanted to sever that connection for her daughter, but it didn’t work. The Nemeton’s active, Nikki’s a banshee, and things could move pretty quickly if you’re not careful.”

Jackson can’t help but pinch the bridge of his nose. “This isn’t the time for riddles, Danny. We all _know_ you’re involved somehow. We’ve always known that, and you’ve always avoided the conversation. You’ve never cared about what the rest of us are, you stay at the edges of the pack, and now you’re being as obtuse as Deaton. So why don’t you try something new and just _tell_ us.”

Danny leans forward, elbows on the table, fingers steepled. “The Nemeton is a place of life and death. It _should_ be primarily life—in fact, the roots of the entire town are there. The telluric currents come to a major junction there. It’s the most powerful place in hundreds of miles, except some _idiot_ cut it down. And when they cut it down, they turned the balance upside down. Sacrifice became more important than rebirth, and the Nemeton is now allied with death. So people who are also allied with death—like Nikki—are called to it. Even more strongly than other supernatural creatures who are just drawn to the massive amounts of power it exudes.”

“Why were Lydia and Stiles able to shut it down?”

“A sacrifice of a banshee to a site of power for the dead?” Danny spreads his hands. “Do I even have to explain that to you?”

“Does Nikki know that?” Jackson could see her figuring that out, deciding to sacrifice herself to save her fellow students. It’s not all that different than the theory he and Stiles had already considered, and yet again, it ends up with Nikki dead.

“Not through me, no. But she’s going to eventually get the idea that she’s linked to it, and that her power draws through it. If it’s shut down, her power will wane as well.” Danny’s expression is dead serious, and Jackson’s pretty sure there’s still a part of the story missing. He’s known Danny a long time, and even though it’s been a while since they’ve seen each other, he can still read him.

“Lydia didn’t go anywhere after the Nemeton shut down,” he says quietly. “If anything, she’s been as strong while dead as she was while alive. Just in a different way.”

“That’s because the Nemeton can’t be shut down, not completely. It just stopped being a beacon. That’s why it was cut down in the first place.” Danny hesitates, then reaches out for his laptop, opening it slowly. “They thought that if they cut it down and stopped the energy from reaching out, then Beacon Hills would be safe.”

Jackson has a funny feeling about this. “ _Who_ thought?”

Danny’s smile is wry. “My grandmother. She was chosen to do it because she was the one person at the time that the Nemeton couldn’t touch. _That’s_ what we are, Jackson. We’re the antithesis of supernatural. We’re absolutely and completely natural. To the point where the supernatural can’t affect us the same way.”

“Wait.” Jackson rolls through events in his mind—things he heard of and things he was there to experience himself. “I poisoned you. And the mistletoe. What about…” He halts when Danny raises a hand.

“Physical effects,” Danny says. “It’s the metaphysical that has no hold on us. We hear the beacon, but it doesn’t pull us in. The full moon doesn’t affect us. And around us, supernatural beings can learn to control their power. I was surprised you poisoned me—I actually thought I could help you, but I couldn’t because you were being controlled by an outside force. But I helped Lydia when she needed it.”

“So she knew.”

“She knew.” Danny shrugs. “She figured it out on her own when she had less trouble when she was with me. It gave her room to experiment and work on her abilities without feeling entirely out of control. It let her learn how to follow the bodies without unexpectedly driving to one in her sleep. But it took time.”

“Nikki hasn’t started doing that.”

“Yet.” Danny leans forward, hands folded together on the table, expression intent. “It’s only a matter of time, Jackson. Which means we need to change things before she gets in over her head, and before the Nemeton causes more trouble.”

Stiles should be here for this. _This_ —the figuring things out side of everything—this was more Stiles than Jackson. Stiles, Danny, Lydia… except now Danny’s being a cryptic ass and Lydia’s dead. Jackson scowls. “I’d say bring the Nemeton back to life but won’t that make things worse.”

“That depends on what you mean by worse.” Danny draws something on the table, and Jackson can see echoes of branches in the path of his fingers. “It’s still here. It’s in my head, as much as something natural can be. It was inside of Lydia, and it’s in Nikki. It’s stronger than my own negative space.” He smiles wryly, dimples going deep. “We _tried_ , Jackson. We tried our own method of shutting it down, then Lydia and Stiles tried another, and now… this. If we bring it back to life, it will unravel the bond between Nikki and the tree, but it won’t stop the beacon. Which means an influx of supernatural creatures to Beacon Hills.”

“What if we bind it to something else?” Jackson has a feeling that there’s a point here—not including the one he is studiously ignoring that Danny has _almost_ made. “Hang on, let me get Stiles on the phone.” He places his phone on the table, dials Stiles and waits with it on speaker. As soon as Stiles picks up, he has Danny repeat the basics, and between them they bring Stiles up to speed.

“Are we going to talk about the part where—”

Jackson interrupts Stiles. “Not the major point right now, Stiles, and we can look at that later. Right now, we need a solution that doesn’t end up with anyone dead or buried under power they can’t handle.”

“Why did your grandmother decide she needed to cut down the Nemeton?” Stiles asks.

“Legend has it that it was growing peacefully and _something_ when she was a child activated it, turned it from a local power source into something that called across the country. World, really.” Danny makes a face. “She had no idea what changed it at that time, but she was a kid, so we’re talking ancient history and something that no one still alive would probably remember. Everyone from Derek’s time that might remember is gone, and I don’t think there are any Argents around either that would know.”

“Your grandmother was a child when Gerard Argent was a child here in Beacon Hills,” Stiles says.

“Are you trying to say that Gerard Argent started this mess before he was an adult?” Jackson has to poke holes in this theory, because it seems like a ridiculous leap back to the only possible focal point they can find from that time.

“Not necessarily, but he was insane compared to other Argents, and so was Kate, so it possibly had an effect on them. And it may have been something he did.” Stiles’s voice gets louder through the phone. “Think about it, Jackson. The Argents wanted to hunt those who hunted them, but here they were in Beacon Hills with a family and kids. Maybe they had some reason they couldn’t go gallivanting around and following the evil creatures, so instead they did something that would make it so Beacon Hills would pull them in.”

“You think they made the Nemeton into a beacon so it would be a trap,” Jackson says slowly, watching the way Danny nods slowly.

“Creating a web so they could trap them like spiders,” Danny murmurs. “It makes sense. Does Allison still have access to all the Argent records?”

“We’ve digitized most of it—you remember that project back in high school.” Jackson can hear the tap of Stiles’s fingers on something, even through the phone. “I don’t remember seeing anything about the Nemeton in any of those records, but we might be talking about something deeper and darker than the bestiary. I don’t think this is the kind of act they’d just leave lying around, because it goes against the Hunter code. It encourages something supernatural, and worse, it puts an entire town at risk. Which means normal people could be hurt—or killed—and have been, just so they can maybe take down a wolf or two. That takes a special brand of insanity.”

“We’ve all met Gerard,” Jackson says dryly, and both Stiles and Danny seem to agree.

“The question remains, how do we turn it off?” Danny’s question is quiet, and his gaze flicks to the door of the room that Nikki decorated for herself. Jackson glowers at him.

“I’ll go talk to Allison and make sure we’re somewhere that Caleb can’t listen in,” Stiles offers. “We might need the pack to stage something that will let Allison and a team of her choice dig through old files in the Argent house while the wolves are otherwise occupied.”

“It’s not enough.”

There’s a soft sigh from the other end of the phone. “I know, Jackson, but we’re doing what we can, as fast as we can.” A small hesitation, keys jingling in the background. “I’m just about to head out. Meet me at home for dinner?”

“Yeah.” Jackson hits the button to end the call, aware of Danny’s silence. “What?”

“I take it you two are back together?” Danny goes back to his laptop, a faint frown creasing his forehead as his fingers glide over the keys.

“Not exactly.”

“He said _home_.”

Danny could always see through Jackson, could always tell when he was avoiding something. And he’s always been good at calling him on his bullshit, but right now, Jackson’s not going to talk about this to anyone. Not yet, no matter how much they push. Instead he stands up, shoves the chair back hard enough that it scrapes against the floor.

“I’ll arrange for you to have some time with Nikki,” he says, voice tight.

Danny’s eyes do that flat thing again, and Jackson wonders if that’s his version of a flash—an anti-flash, for someone who is the antithesis of supernatural. “You don’t have to—”

“We’re working on a new period of honesty in this pack, which means yes, I do. _We_ do.” It hasn’t been said yet, but Jackson can see it the longer he looks, and he can follow the twisted path Lydia must have taken in order to make her decision. “You should get to know her. She’s an amazing kid. I wish I hadn’t missed most of her life.”

“Sounds like the two of you have caught up, recently.”

“She has an amazing capacity for love.” His smile tilts. “I blame Stiles for that one.”

There isn’t anything more to say, and Jackson’s not sure he wants the words right now. In the end, it doesn’t really change anything. He knows Nikki isn’t about to abandon their family, not when she’s working so hard to put it back together. But he knows she’ll want to make contact and understand, too. He makes a mental note to make sure that Stiles gets Nikki and Lydia back together so they can talk through this.

“I know you’re listening,” he mutters under her breath, as if Lydia were there. “You could have made this easier. We would have helped. We never wanted anyone to hurt as much as you must have.”

There isn’t any answer, but Jackson can guess what she would say. Just make sure her daughter never has the same troubles she does. Protect Nikki, no matter the cost.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me [on tumblr](http://tryslora.tumblr.com)!


End file.
